"The supreme perfection of man in this life is to be so united to God that all his soul with all its faculties and powers are so gathered into the Lord God that he becomes one spirit with him, and remembers nothing except God, is aware of and recognises nothing but God, but with all his desires unified by the joy of love, he rests contentedly in the enjoyment of his Maker alone."

St Albert the Great

* * *

"As the flesh is nourished by food, so is man supported by prayers"

St Augustine

* * *

"It is well to choose some one good devotion, and to stick to it, and never to abandon it."

A preacher once stood, after matins, before a crucifix, and
complained from his heart to God that he could not meditate
properly on His torments
and passion, and that this was very bitter for him, inasmuch as,
up to that hour, he had in consequence suffered so much. And, as
he thus stood with his
complaint, his interior senses were rapt to an unusual exaltation,
in which
he was very speedily and clearly enlightened as follows: Thou
shalt make a
hundred venias,[1] and each venia with a special meditation of My
passion,
and each meditation with a request. And every one of My sufferings
shall be
spiritually impressed on thee, to suffer the same again through Me
as far as
thou art able.

And as he thus stood in the light, and would needs count the venias, he
only found ninety, upon which he spoke to God thus: Sweet Lord,
Thou didst
speak of a hundred venias, and I find only ninety. Then he was
reminded of
ten others which he had already made in the Chapter House, before
solemnizing, according to his custom, the devout meditation of the
miserable
leading forth of Christ to death, and coming before that very
crucifix; and
so he found that the hundred meditations had entirely included
from
beginning to end His bitter Passion and death. And when he began
to exercise
himself in this matter, as he had been directed, his former
dryness was
changed into an interior sweetness.

Accordingly, he gained many a bright inspiration of divine truth,
whereof these meditations were a cause, and between him and the
Eternal
Wisdom there sprang up a tender intercourse, and this took place
not by a
bodily intercourse nor by figurative answers; it took place solely
by
meditation in the light of Holy Writ whose answers can deceive in
nothing;
so that the answers are taken either from the mouth of the Eternal
Wisdom
who uttered them herself in the Gospel, or else from the highest
doctors,
and they comprise either the same words or the same sense, or else
such
truths as are agreeable to Holy Writ, out of whose mouth the
Eternal Wisdom
spoke. Nor did the visions which hereafter follow take place in a
bodily
way; they are but an interpreted similitude.

The answer touching our Blessed Lady's complaint he has given in
the sense of St. Bernard's words; and the reason why he propounds
his doctrine by question and answer is that it may prove the more
attractive; that it may not seem as though he were the person to
whom the doctrine belonged, or who had spoken it as coming from
himself. His object is to give a general doctrine, in which he and
all persons may find every one what is suitable for himself. He
takes upon himself, as a teacher ought to do, the person of all
mankind: now he speaks in the person of a sinner; now under the
image of a love-sick soul; then, as the matter suggests, in the
likeness of a servant with whom the Eternal Wisdom discourses.

Moreover, everything is expounded with reference to our interior;
much is given here as doctrine that a zealous man should choose
out for himself as devout prayer. The thoughts which stand here
are simple, the words simpler still, for they proceed from a
simple soul and are meant for simple men who have still their
imperfections to cast aside.

It happened that, as the same brother had begun to write on the
three matters, namely, the Passion, and the rest of it all, and
had come to that part on repentance: Now then, cheer up thou soul
of mine! etc., he had reclined himself one forenoon on his chair,
and that in a bright sleep he saw clearly, in a vision, how two
culpable persons sat before him, and how he chastised them very
severely for sitting there so idly, and performing nothing.

Then was it given him to understand that he should thread a
needle, which was put into his hand. Now the thread was threefold;
and two parts were very fine, but the other part was a little
courser, and when he would needs twist the three together he could
not well do it. Then he saw close to him on his right hand our
Lord, standing the same as when He was unbound from the pillar,
and He stood before him with a look so kind and fatherly that he
thought it was indeed his father. Now he perceived that His body
had quite a natural colour; it was not very white, but of the
colour of wheat, that is, white and red well mixed together (and
this is the most natural colour of all), and he perceived that His
whole body was covered with wounds, and that they were quite fresh
and bloody, that some were round, some angular, some very long,
just as the whips had torn Him; and as He thus stood sweetly
before him, and kindly looked at him, the preacher raised his
hands and rubbed them to and fro on His bloody wounds, and then
took the three parts of the thread and twisted them easily
together. Then was given to him a power, and he understood that he
was to complete his task, and that God with His rose-coloured
garment (which is wrought so delightfully out of His wounds) would
clothe all those in eternal beauty who should occupy their time
and leisure with it here below.

One thing, however, a man should know, that there is as great a
difference between hearing himself the sweet accords of a harp and
hearing
another speak of them, as there is between the words received in
pure grace
and that flow out of a living heart, through a living mouth, and
those same
words when they come to be set down on dead parchment, especially
in the
German tongue; for then are they chilled, and they wither like
plucked
roses: for the sprightliness of their delivery, which, more than
anything,
moves the heart of man, is then extinguished, and in the dryness
of dry
hearts are they received. Never was there a string how sweet
soever, but it
became dumb when stretched on a dry log. A joyless heart can as
little
understand a joyful tongue as a German can an Englishman!

Therefore let
every fervent soul hasten after the first out-pourings of this
sweet
doctrine, so that she may learn to contemplate them in their
origin, where
they were in all their loveliness and ravishing beauty; even there
are the
in-pourings of the present grace, to the quickening of hearts that
are dead!
And he who thus looks at this book will hardly have read it
through before
his heart will needs be deeply moved either to fervent love, or to
new
light, or to a yearning towards God, and abhorrence of sin, or
else to some
spiritual request, wherein the soul will presently be renewed in
grace.

1.

A form of prostration, "at full length on the right side,"
practiced by
the Dominicans.